Information communication terminal, method of marking mail as read, and program for marking mail as read

ABSTRACT

The present invention is an information communication terminal having a function of displaying, together with a received mail list, part or all of a message of a received mail in the selected state in the preview. The information communication terminal includes: a judgment unit judging whether all of the message of the received mail in the selected state fits in a predetermined area for the preview display; and an update unit performing an update in the case when the judgment is affirmative so that information indicating whether the received mail has already been read indicates that it has already been read.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

(1) Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an information communication terminal,in particular to a process of displaying received mail.

(2) Description of the Related Art

To check a received mail item on a mobile telephone, the user opens thereceived mail folder, which causes a list of senders of the receivedmail to be displayed. Then, the user operates the cursor using directionkeys to select one of the received mail items and pushes down a confirmbutton for mail display, and whereby the message of the mail isdisplayed. From this point onward, the mail item is treated as readmail, assumed that its message has been read by the user. When there isan unread mail item, being not treated as read mail, an icon indicatingthat there is an unread mail item is displayed on the mobile telephone.

Some recent mobile phones have a function to display, when the user isoperating the cursor on the display of the received mail list using thedirection keys, a preview of the message of a mail item selected by thecursor. When a mail item in the list is selected by the cursor, thecharacters of the selected mail item may be highlighted in reverse videoof the black and white, or the cursor may simply be changed to an arrowpointing to the selected mail item. In a preview display, the beginningportion, e.g. only the first two lines, of the message of the mail itemselected by the cursor is displayed together with the received mail listin order to call the user's attention to the content of the selectedmail item. Thus, with the preview display, the user is able to readilycheck or understand the content of the mail item. Since the preview ofthe selected mail item is displayed with the received mail list, thepreview display area is fairly limited, and it is accordingly sometimesthe case that the user cannot check the entire message of the mail itemin the preview. In this case, therefore, it is desirable that the mailitem be treated as unread.

On the other hand, because it is hard to write, and also read, a longmail message on a mobile device like a mobile telephone, short messagesare often exchanged, and therefore the limited display area may besufficient for displaying such a short message. In this case, it iscumbersome for the user to perform an operation to make theshort-message mail item as read. For example, assume the case in whichthe user, who had checked the message of a mail item in the preview,changed the display straight back to a standby screen without actuallyperforming an operation to display the message. Here, although the userhas checked the mail message in the preview, the mail item is nottreated as read mail, and an icon appears indicating that the mail itemhas not been read. Because of the icon, the user may misunderstand thatanother mail item has been received, and accordingly check again thesame, already checked mail item. In order to prevent such occurrence,the user has to perform an operation of displaying the mail message;however, the operation is cumbersome for the user since he/she hasalready checked the mail message in the preview.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is an information communication terminal thatdisplays, together with a received mail list, at least part of a messageof a received mail in a predetermined display area. The informationcommunication terminal comprises: a receiving unit operable to receive amail; a storage unit operable to store therein the received mail inassociation with unread/read information indicating whether the receivedmail has already been read; a judgment unit operable to make a judgmenton whether all of the message of the received mail is displayed in thepredetermined display area; and an update unit operable to perform anupdate in a case when the judgment is affirmative so that theunread/read information indicates that the received mail has alreadybeen read.

The present invention may also be a method of marking mail as read usedon a mobile telephone that displays in a predetermined display area,together with a received mail list, at least part of a message of areceived mail chosen from the received mail list by cursor operation andset in a selected state. The method comprising the steps of: receiving amail; making a judgment on whether all of the message of the receivedmail is displayed in the predetermined display area; and updating, in acase when the judgment is affirmative, unread/read informationindicating whether the received mail has already been read so as toindicate that the received mail has already been read.

Further, the present invention may also be a program for marking mail asread used on a mobile telephone that displays in a predetermined displayarea, together with a received mail list, at least part of a message ofa received mail chosen from the received mail list by cursor operationand set in a selected state. The program causing a computer of themobile telephone to execute the steps of: receiving a mail; making ajudgment on whether all of the message of the received mail is displayedin the predetermined display area; and updating, in a case when thejudgment is affirmative, unread/read information indicating whether thereceived mail has already been read so as to indicate that the receivedmail has already been read.

Here, all required to the received mail list is to be a list ofinformation that allows the user to distinguish each of received mails.For example, it may be a list of titles of received mails. Note that thereceived mail list includes at least one received mail.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

These and other objects, advantages and features of the invention willbecome apparent from the following description thereof taken inconjunction with the accompanying drawings which illustrate a specificembodiment of the invention. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing functional components of amobile telephone;

FIG. 2 shows an example of data of received mail stored in the mobiletelephone;

FIG. 3A shows an example of a preview on the mobile telephone; and FIG.3B shows another example of a preview on the mobile telephone;

FIG. 4 shows changes in the data of the received mail shown in FIG. 2,in the case where a preview is displayed;

FIG. 5A shows a display example of a standby screen when there is nounread mail item; and FIG. 5B shows a display example of the standbyscreen when there is an unread mail item;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing a process of making a mail item as readmail when the mail item is displayed in the preview on the mobiletelephone;

FIG. 7 shows examples of fonts used in the preview and data for eachfont stored in the mobile telephone; and

FIG. 8 shows a display example in which a mail message in the preview onthe mobile telephone is displayed in a different character size.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The following describes a preferred embodiment of an informationcommunication terminal of the present invention, a mobile telephone,with the aid of drawings.

Embodiment Structure

FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing functional components of amobile telephone 100. As shown in FIG. 1, the mobile telephone 100includes a communication unit 110, an operation unit 120, an audioprocessing unit 130, a display unit 140, a storage unit 150, and acontrol unit 160.

The above-mentioned receiving unit, storage unit, judgment unit andupdate unit are realized by the communication unit 110, the storage unit150, a judgment unit 161 of the control unit 160, and an update unit 162of the control unit 160, respectively.

The communication unit 110 is formed including therein an antenna 111.The communication unit 110 demodulates a received signal received fromthe antenna 111 into a received sound signal and a received data signal,and outputs the demodulated received sound signal and received datasignal to the audio processing unit 130 and the control unit 160,respectively. Further, the communication unit 110 has a function ofmodulating a transmitted sound signal which has been A/D converted atthe audio processing unit 130 and a transmitted data signal, such as ane-mail given from the control unit 160, and outputting the modulatedsignals from the antenna 111.

The operation unit 120 includes a group of various keys, such as anumeric keypad, an on-hook key, an off-hook key, direction keys, anenter key, and a mail key. The operation unit 120 has a function ofreceiving a user's operation and transmitting the received operation tothe control unit 160. In the present invention, an instruction relatedto data transmission is received from the user.

The audio processing unit 130 has a function of D/A converting thereceived sound signal output from the communication unit 110 andoutputting the converted signal to the speaker 132 and a function of A/Dconverting the transmitted sound signal obtained from a microphone 131and outputting the thus generated signal to the communication unit 110.

The display unit 140 includes a monitor realized by an LCD (LiquidCrystal Display) or the like, and has a function of displaying, on themonitor, images indicated by the control unit 160. Specificallyspeaking, the display unit 140 displays thereon a standby screen, mailmessages, a time and the like. In the present invention, a preview of aselected received mail item is displayed together with a list ofreceived mail.

The storage unit 150 is formed including ROM (Read Only Memory) and RAM(Random Access Memory), and is realized by a small-sized hard disk, anonvolatile memory and the like. The storage unit 150 has a function ofstoring therein various data and programs. In the present invention, thestorage unit 150 stores therein received mail 151. The received mail 151is a collection of mail items received by the mobile telephone 100, andthe details are described later in the specification.

The control unit 160 has a function of controlling each component of themobile telephone 100. In the present invention, the control unit 160 isformed including the judgment unit 161 and update unit 162.

The judgment unit 161 detects the number of characters of a receivedmail message, and judges whether it is within 34, which is the number ofcharacters that can be displayed in the preview field. When the judgmentunit 161 determines that it is 34 or less and the mail item is displayedin the preview, the judgment unit 161 transmits to the update unit 162,full-text display information indicating that the entire message of themail item has been displayed in the preview field. The full-text displayinformation includes therein a number for identifying the mail item andan indication of the entire text of the mail message has been displayedin the preview. In addition, when the number of characters included in areceived mail item is 35 and the 35^(th) character is a period,full-text display information is exceptionally transmitted to the updateunit 162.

The update unit 162 has a function of updating, when unread/readinformation indicates “UNREAD”, the unread/read information so as toindicate “READ” in response to the full-text display informationtransmitted from the judgment unit 161. The unread/read information is aflag indicating each received mail item stored in the storage unit iseither unread or read mail. Further, when the user operates on theoperation unit 120 to select one mail item to display the message of themail item and then the mail message is displayed on the display unit140, if the unread/read information of the displayed mail item indicates“UNREAD”, the update unit 162 updates the unread/read information toindicate “READ”. Herewith, the unread/read information can be sharedwhen the message of a received mail item is displayed in a normal mannerand when it is displayed in the preview.

[Data]

In FIG. 2, received mail 151 a is shown as an example of displaying alist of the received mail 151 stored in the storage unit 150. As shownin the figure, in the storage unit 150, a field of mail number 201, afield of sender 202 of the received mail item, a field of mail message203 and a field of unread/read information 204 are stored in associationwith each other. According to the example, only these sets ofinformation are displayed; however, the mail address and received timeand date may also be associated therewith.

In the field of mail number 201, information of a number assigned, foridentification purposes, by the mobile telephone 100 to each mail itemis written.

In the field of sender 202, information indicating a person or a companyhaving sent the mail item is written.

In the field of mail message 203, information of the message of the mailitem is written.

In the field of unread/read information 204, information indicatingwhether the mail has been read by the user is written. Here, for easiercomprehension, the term “READ” or “UNREAD” is used. In practice, theinformation “1” indicating “READ” and the information “0” indicating“UNREAD” are stored on the computer of the mobile telephone.

For example, the sender of the mail number “001” is “Tsukanishi”, andthe mail message is “I've got book you asked for.”, which includes 28characters (one space is counted as one character) with no linefeedcode. The unread/read information of the mail item in FIG. 2 indicatesthe mail item is yet to be read.

Further, the sender of the mail number “002” is “Keigo Yasuoka”, and themail message is “Meet up at 10. Don't be late!”. In FIG. 2, theunread/read information indicates the mail item is yet to be read. Themail message is made up of two lines with a linefeed code following the14^(th) character, and the 1^(st) and 2^(nd) lines include 14 characterseach.

Further, the sender of the mail number “003” is “Haruko Teramura”, andthe mail message is “G'morning:-) How are you? Catch you up later.”. InFIG. 2, the unread/read information indicates the mail item is yet to beread. The mail message includes an emoticon (face mark), and is made upof three lines with a linefeed code following the 12^(th) character ineach of the 1^(st) and 2^(nd) lines. The 1^(st) and 2^(nd) lines include12 characters each and the 3^(rd) line includes 19 characters, with atotal of 43 characters.

In terms of the mail numbers “004” and “005”, the unread/readinformation indicates “READ”.

FIG. 3 shows examples of a display screen with preview. FIG. 3A is anexample of the display screen in which the message of the mail number002 is displayed in a preview field together with a list that is createdbased on the mail list of FIG. 2. FIG. 3B is an example of the displayscreen in which the message of the mail number 003 is displayed in thepreview field after the user has made an operation on the mobiletelephone in the state of FIG. 3A.

As is seen in FIG. 3A that the mail number 002 is selected, the line ofthe mail number 002 is highlighted in reverse video, and the message isdisplayed in a preview field 301 a. In the case of the mail number 002,the entire message fits in the preview field 301 a.

On the other hand, as is seen in FIG. 3B that the mail number 003 isselected, the line of the mail number 003 is highlighted in reversevideo. Only the first two lines of the message appear in a preview field301 b, and the entire message of the mail number 003 is not shown.

As can be seen from the change from FIG. 3A to FIG. 3B, the entiremessage of the mail number “002”, which is unread in FIG. 3A, isdisplayed in the preview field, and therefore the state of the mailchanges from “UNREAD” to “READ”. Accordingly, in FIG. 3B, an iconindicating that the mail item has yet to be read is no longer displayed.When the received mail list is being displayed, the process of updatingthe icon is performed after the cursor is moved.

Here describes the preview field. The preview field is able to displayonly two lines of mail message, and up to 16 characters and 18characters can be fitted in the 1^(st and) 2^(nd) lines, respectively.

FIG. 4 shows received mail 151 b having been changed from the receivedmail 151 a of FIG. 2 after the preview, as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, wasdisplayed.

When the messages of the mail numbers “001”, “002” and “003” aredisplayed in the preview field as shown in FIGS. 3A and 3B, regardingthe mail numbers “001” and “002”, the entire message fits in the previewfield; however, the entire message of the mail number “003” does not fittherein.

Accordingly, the judgment unit 161 transmits, to the update unit 162,the full-text display information for the mail numbers “001” and “002”only. The update unit 162 updates the flags of the mail numbers “001”and “002” from “UNREAD” to “READ”, and accordingly the received mail 151a is updated to the received mail 151 b.

FIG. 5 shows an example regarding displays based on the unread/readinformation. FIG. 5A shows an example of a standby screen for the casewhere all received mail items have already been read; and FIG. 5B showsan example of the standby screen for the case where there is a receivedmail item yet to be read.

FIG. 5B shows an example of the standby screen in the case where thereis a received mail item yet to be read, and an unread mail icon 501 isdisplayed as shown in FIG. 5B. The icon is displayed when unread mailinformation is included in the mail list stored in the storage unit 150.

On the other hand, when there is no unread mail information and allreceived mail items have already been read, the unread mail icon 501 ofFIG. 5B is not displayed, as shown in FIG. 5A.

[Operation]

The following describes, according to the present embodiment, operationof the mobile telephone 100 for changing the state of a mail item to beregarded as having already been read, with the aid of a flowchart ofFIG. 6. The operation is described here, starting with the state inwhich a mail list with a preview, like one shown in FIG. 3, is displayedon the mobile telephone 100.

First, the control unit 160 of the mobile telephone 100 judges whethertwo seconds have elapsed since the message of a selected mail item,which is highlighted in reverse video, is displayed in the preview field(Step S601). The time is measured from the point after the mobiletelephone 100 performs an output of the preview, and the judgment ismade based on whether the user performs operation on the cursor duringthe period. When the message of the selected mail item has yet to bedisplayed in the preview for two seconds or more (Step S601: NO), thecontrol unit 160 waits that two seconds elapse. Or when another mailitem is selected, the control unit 160 starts timing from the beginning.The reason of judging whether two seconds have elapsed is to prevent theincidence in which the selected mail item becomes regarded as havingalready been read when the user simply moves the cursor quickly and themail item happens to be selected in that way. The two seconds isprovided to assure that the mail message is checked by the user.

When two seconds has elapsed after the message of the selected mail isdisplayed in the preview (Step S601: YES), and there is a linefeed codeat the end of the mail message, the control unit 160 deletes thelinefeed code (Step S603). Note however that the deletion is notperformed practically, but this step is performed only to judge whetherthe entire mail message has been displayed in the preview. This step isprovided assuming the case that some mail items include two or morelinefeed codes at the end. These extra linefeed codes do not have to bedisplayed in the preview since such information is meaningless to theuser. Accordingly, the step is adopted, also in this case, to change thestate of the mail item to be regarded as having already been read.

With the linefeed codes at the end of the mail message being deleted,the judgment unit 161 judges whether there is a linefeed code within themail message (Step S605). Regarding the judgment of the presence of alinefeed code, to put it briefly, the storage unit 150 prestores thereina code for identifying a linefeed code, and the judgment is made basedon whether the mail message includes a code that matches the prestoredcode.

When a linefeed code is included in the mail message (Step S605: YES),the judgment unit 161 judges whether there are two or more linefeedcodes (Step S607).

When two or more linefeed codes are not included, i.e. there is only one(Step S607: NO), the judgment unit 161 judges whether the linefeed codeis positioned at or after the 17^(th) character of the message (StepS609). When the linefeed code is not positioned at or after the 17^(th)character (Step S609: NO), the judgment unit 161 judges whether thenumber of characters following the linefeed code is 18 or less (StepS611).

When the number of characters following the linefeed code is 18 or less(Step S611: YES), the judgment unit 161 notifies the update unit 162that the entire message of the selected mail item has been displayed inthe preview. In response to the notice, the update unit 162 updates theunread/read information of the mail item, if it indicates “UNREAD”, to“READ” in the received mail 151 of the storage unit 150 (Step S613).

When there is one linefeed code which is not positioned at or after the17^(th) character and the number of characters following the linefeedcode is 18 or less (Step S611: NO), the judgment unit 161 judges whetherthe number of characters following the linefeed code is 19 and the19^(th) letter is a period (Step S612). When the 19^(th) character is aperiod (Step S612: YES), the judgment unit 161 notifies the update unit162 that the entire message of the selected mail item has been displayedin the preview. In response to the notice, the update unit 162 updatesthe unread/read information of the mail item, if it indicates “UNREAD”,to “READ” in the received mail 151 of the storage unit 150 (Step S613).When the 19^(th) character is a period, the user needs not to see iteven though it is not displayed. Therefore, in such a case, the mailitem is treated as having already been read, whereby eliminating thenecessity for the user to perform an operation to display the message ofthe received mail item.

Then, when an instruction indicating to end the mail list display isreceived from the user, the process is ended. In the case where adirection key is pressed and a different mail item is selected, theprocess shown in the flowchart is started from the beginning for themail item.

When there are two or more linefeed codes (Step S607: YES), when thereis one linefeed code which is positioned at or after the 17^(th)character of the mail message (Step S609: YES), or when there is onelinefeed code, the number of characters following the linefeed code is19, and the 19^(th) letter is not a period (Step S612: NO), the processof changing the state of the mail item to “READ” is not performed, andthe operation is ended with the unread/read information of the mail itemremaining to be “UNREAD”.

In Step S605, when there is no linefeed code in the mail message (StepS605: NO), the judgment unit 161 judges whether the number of charactersof the mail message is 34 or less (Step S606).

When the number of characters of the mail message exceeds 34 (Step S606:NO), the judgment unit 161 judges whether the number of characters ofthe mail message is 35 and then the 35^(th) character is a period (StepS608).

When the number of characters of the mail message is 34 or less (StepS606: YES), or when the number of characters of the mail message is 35and the 35^(th) character is a period (Step S608: YES), the judgmentunit 161 notifies the update unit 162 that the entire message of theselected mail item has been displayed in the preview. In response to thenotice, the update unit 162 updates the unread/read information of themail item, if it indicates “UNREAD”, to “READ” in the received mail 151of the storage unit 150 (Step S613).

Then, when an instruction indicating to end the mail list display isreceived from the user, the process is ended. In the case where adirection key is pressed and a different mail item is selected, theprocess shown in the flowchart is started from the beginning for theselected mail item.

When the number of characters of the mail message exceeds 34 (Step S606:NO) and then the number of characters of the mail message is not 35 andthe 35^(th) character is not a period (Step S608: NO), the process ofchanging the state of the mail item to “READ” is not performed, and theoperation is ended with the unread/read information of the mailremaining to be “UNREAD”.

Thus concludes the description of the process of changing the state ofmail item to “READ” according to the present invention when the mailitem has been checked in the preview on the mobile telephone 100.

According to the above structure, the mobile telephone 100 is able tocause a received mail item whose entire message has been displayed onthe preview screen to be treated as read mail. Herewith, a mail itemwhose message content has once been checked in a predetermined area,i.e. the preview field, is made to be treated as read mail, eliminatingthe necessity for the user to perform a cumbersome operation to changethe mail item to the “READ” state.

In addition, with the procedure of Step S601 of FIG. 6 above, only whena predetermined period of time (two seconds in Step S601) has elapsedsince a received mail item being displayed in the preview, a judgment ismade whether the entire message of the received mail item has beendisplayed in the preview, and accordingly the unread/read information isupdated to be “READ”. Therefore, it is possible to prevent theunread/read information of the mail item from being changed to “READ” inthe case when the mail item is displayed in the preview only for amoment as a result of a cursor being quickly moved, and thus the userhas yet to check the mail message.

[Additional Particulars]

The mobile telephone of the present invention has been described basedon the above embodiment; however, it is a matter of course the presentinvention is not limited to the embodiment. The following describesmodifications of the present invention.

(1) The present invention may be a method of marking mail as read thatis used on the mobile telephone described in the above embodiment, or acomputer program which is loaded to a computer of the mobile telephoneand executed to thereby achieve the method.

The computer program may be stored in a recording medium, such as amemory, an FD (flexible disk), an MO (Magneto Optical disc), a CD(Compact Disc), a DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), or a BD (Blu-ray Disc).

(2) The above embodiment makes a judgment on whether the entire mailmessage has been displayed in the preview field, indifferent to the fontand size of the characters. However, the font of the charactersdisplayed in the preview field may be changed according to the user'spreference.

The mobile telephone of the present invention may be adapted to supportmultiple fonts and judge whether the mail message fits in the previewfield in accordance with each font. Herewith, it is possible to make ajudgment whether the mail message fits in the preview field inaccordance with each font.

In this case, the mobile telephone needs to prestore in the storage unit150, various types of character fonts and also a list indicating howmuch space a character in individual fonts, like ones shown in FIG. 7,occupies in the preview field.

As shown in FIG. 7, a font table 700 includes a font field 701, acharacter size field 702, and a character occupancy rate field in thepreview field 703.

In the font field 701, the font name identifying each type of font iswritten.

The character size field 702 indicates the size of the character whendisplayed in the font. The examples shown here are the character sizesof 12 and 8. Although not shown in the figure, the character size can beother than 12 or 8.

The character occupancy rate field in the preview field 703 indicateswith a numerical value, an area occupied by one character in the font inthe horizontal direction within the preview field. The occupancy rate isindicated by a converted value when one full-size character in MS Gothicwith a character size of 12 is 1. It can be seen from the figure that“MS Gothic” and “MS Mincho” have different character occupancy rateswhen displayed in full size and in half size, and also “Century” hasdifferent character occupancy rates when displayed in upper case and inlower case. Furthermore, some fonts have a different occupancy size foreach type of character, and in such a case, it is necessary to store avalue representing the occupancy rate for each type of character. Notethat “MS Gothic” and “MS Mincho” are Japanese fonts. And a full-sizecharacter has a larger width when displayed than a half-size character.It is here described with simplicity that one half-size character is aone-byte character. In practice, however, some fonts include two-bytehalf-size characters. Here, if having the same size as a one-bytehalf-size character, a two-byte half-size character is treated as ahalf-size character.

Then, when the control unit 160 judges whether the entire mail messagefits in the preview field, the judgment may be made, based on valuesrepresenting occupancy rates of individual characters of a font in use,to see whether the total occupancy area of the mail message is the sameas or smaller than the area of the preview field.

(3) In the above embodiment, the judgment unit judges simply whether thecharacters with the current size fit in the preview field; however, thejudgment unit may make the judgment when the control unit 160 changesthe character size. This judgment can be performed when alterablecharacter sizes have been specified and the size per character has beenstored for each of the alterable character sizes. Here, whether the areaoccupied by the entire mail message after the change of the charactersize is the same as or smaller than the area of the preview field isjudged.

In addition, in the case where the entire mail message fits in thepreview field if the current size of the message characters is alteredto another size, i.e. a smaller size, the mail message may be displayedwith the smaller character size. Here, it is necessary to also store avalue representing a height occupancy rate in a font table, like oneexplained in the Additional Particular (2) above.

FIG. 8 shows a display example in which a received mail item can bedisplayed by reducing the character size. In the case when the charactersize is 12, which is one character size shown in FIG. 7, the entire mailmessage is not displayed, as shown in FIG. 3B; however, the charactersize is altered to 8, and then the entire mail message can be displayedin a preview field 801 as shown in FIG. 8.

Since the entire mail message is displayed in the preview field 801, theupdate unit 162 updates the unread/read information of the mail number003 in the received mail 151, if it indicates “UNREAD”, to “READ”.

(4) In the above embodiment, the control in consideration of linefeedcodes is performed as shown in FIG. 6. This control based on linefeedcodes may be altered as follows.

For example, when a linefeed code is included, the judgment unit 161calculates the number of the displayed characters in the line where thelinefeed code is positioned, adds the number of remaining characterspaces (one space corresponds to one character) in the line to thecalculated number, and judges whether the sum is 34 or less.

(5) In the process of unread/read information of the above embodiment,even if the unread/read information already indicates “READ”, it may beupdated to be “READ” when the entire mail message is displayed in thepreview. Alternatively, if the unread/read information already indicates“READ” when the preview is made, the judgment on the display of theentire mail message may be omitted.

(6) In the above embodiment, the explanation is given using the mobiletelephone as an example of the information communication terminal;however, the present invention is not limited to the mobile telephone,and any terminal having a function of receiving a mail item and displayin the preview the mail item together with a list of received mail canbe used. A PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), for example, can be used inplace of the mobile telephone.

(7) In the above embodiment, the number of characters that can bedisplayed in the first line in the preview is 16, and in the secondline, 18. However, these numbers of characters can be changed inaccordance with the specification of the information communicationterminal, and for example, the first and second lines may include 10 and12 characters, respectively.

(8) In the above embodiment, the waiting time after the received mailitem is displayed in the preview is set to 2 seconds, as shown in StepS601 of FIG. 6. However, the waiting time is not limited to seconds, andmay be 5 seconds, for example.

1. An information communication terminal that displays, together with areceived mail list, at least part of a message of a received mail in apredetermined display area, comprising: a receiving unit operable toreceive a mail; a storage unit operable to store therein the receivedmail in association with unread/read information indicating whether thereceived mail has already been read; a judgment unit operable to make ajudgment on whether all of the message of the received mail is displayedin the predetermined display area; and an update unit operable toperform an update in a case when the judgment is affirmative so that theunread/read information indicates that the received mail has alreadybeen read.
 2. The information communication terminal of claim 1, furthercomprising: a choice receiving unit operable to receive choice operationin which one received mail is chosen from the received mail list bycursor operation, and set the chosen received mail in selected state;and a preview unit operable to perform, in the predetermined displayarea, a display of as much of a message of the chosen received mail inthe selected state as is possible, starting from beginning of themessage.
 3. The information communication terminal of claim 2, whereinthe update unit performs the update in a case when a predeterminedperiod of time has elapsed since the preview unit started the display ofthe message of the chosen received mail in the selected state.
 4. Theinformation communication terminal of claim 2, wherein the update unit(i) performs the update in a case when a predetermined period of timehas elapsed since the preview unit started the display of the message ofthe chosen received mail in the selected state, with no received maildifferent from the chosen received mail in the selected state beingselected, and (ii) withholds the update when the predetermined period oftime has not elapsed.
 5. The information communication terminal of claim2, further comprising: a display direction receiving unit operable toreceive display operation in which the message of the chosen receivedmail in the selected state is displayed without the received mail list;and a full-message display unit operable to perform a full-messagedisplay in which all of the message of the chosen received mail in theselected state is displayed, wherein the update unit performs the updatein a case when the full-message display unit performs the full-messagedisplay.
 6. The information communication terminal of claim 5, whereinthe update unit performs the update only when the unread/readinformation indicates that the chosen received mail in the selectedstate has not been read.
 7. The information communication terminal ofclaim 1, wherein the judgment unit compares a count of charactersincluded in the message of the received mail and a count of charactersthat can be displayed in the predetermined display area, and makes thejudgment affirmatively in a case when the count of characters includedin the message of the received mail is equal to or less than the countof characters that can be displayed in the predetermined display area.8. The information communication terminal of claim 7, furthercomprising: a font storage unit storing therein a plurality of characterfonts, and a size of each character in each of the character fonts,wherein the judgment unit makes the judgment based on the size of eachcharacter in a character font selected from the character fonts and usedto display the message of the received mail in the predetermined displayarea.
 9. The information communication terminal of claim 7, wherein thejudgment unit further makes, in a case when the count of charactersincluded in the message of the received mail is greater by one, than thecount of characters that can be displayed in the predetermined displayarea, a judgment on whether a last character in the message of thereceived mail is a period, and the update unit performs the update in acase when the judgment is affirmative.
 10. The information communicationterminal of claim 7, wherein the judgment unit further detects, in acase when a linefeed code is included in the message of the receivedmail, the count of characters included in the message of the receivedmail based on a position of the linefeed code.
 11. The informationcommunication terminal of claim 1, further comprising: a display changeunit operable to make, in a case when the judgment of the judgment unitis negative, a judgment on whether all of the message of the receivedmail can be displayed in the predetermined display area by changing adisplay size of characters for the message of the received mail, anddisplay, in a case when the judgment thereof is affirmative, all of themessage of the received mail in the display size of characters.
 12. Theinformation communication terminal of claim 1, further comprising: anunread mail icon display unit operable to display on a standby screen,in a case when the unread/read information indicates that the receivedmail has not been read, an icon indicating that there is an unreadreceived mail.
 13. A method of marking mail as read used on a mobiletelephone that displays in a predetermined display area, together with areceived mail list, at least part of a message of a received mail chosenfrom the received mail list by cursor operation and set in a selectedstate, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a mail; making ajudgment on whether all of the message of the received mail is displayedin the predetermined display area; and updating, in a case when thejudgment is affirmative, unread/read information indicating whether thereceived mail has already been read so as to indicate that the receivedmail has already been read.
 14. A program for marking mail as read usedon a mobile telephone that displays in a predetermined display area,together with a received mail list, at least part of a message of areceived mail chosen from the received mail list by cursor operation andset in a selected state, the program causing a computer of the mobiletelephone to execute the steps of: receiving a mail; making a judgmenton whether all of the message of the received mail is displayed in thepredetermined display area; and updating, in a case when the judgment isaffirmative, unread/read information indicating whether the receivedmail has already been read so as to indicate that the received mail hasalready been read.